Magic

I've always loved make-believe..stories...Disney...pretend worlds. It's wired into me. Playing with my 2-year old daughter is a piece of cake. We speak the same language and play for hours in other worlds. It's a fabulous place for her and her freinds to learn about life; it's a fabulous way for me to learn how she thinks.

So it's natural for me to use imagination and creativity as a tool when coaching. If a client doesn't know how to solve a problem, I'll often say, "Make it up."
Silence. "What do you mean?"
"Make it up...throw out an answer...just say the first thing that comes to mind."
More silence. "Ummm...I dunno."
"OK..how would Harry Potter do it?"
"Oh, that's easy. He'd call Hermione and Ron to help him and they'd do A,B and C."
"How do you know that?"
"Umm, I guess I don'treally *know* that."
"So you made it up. You based your answer on what you knew already and imagined the rest, right? And you even said that was easy."
"Yeah..I guess so."
"So let's try that again. How would you imagine solving the problem we were talking about earlier, based on what you already know about it?"
"I'd do X, Y and Z and then ask Joe to help me with E, F and G."
"Do you know it'll work? Have you done that before? Or are you imagining it?"
"I've never done it before, but I imagine it'll work out OK."

Imagination...creativity...pretend worlds...make-believe. It works for a 2-year old and works for a 40-year old. It takes you to a new place...gives you a new way to look at the things...a new perspective. Try it...play in another world today and see what's different tomorrow. Let me know how it goes...I'd love to hear from you!

How to Save Time When Working with an Editor

My coaching client, Sue, was at it again. Complaining about a co-worker. "If only he did this, then everything would be OK." "He takes up too much of my time." "I have tried to talk with him again and again, but it only ends in a big argument. I'm fed up listening to him."

I finally asked "What's your contribution to the situation?" She looked at me as if I was from Mars. "My contribution? I've been trying to work with him for months. It's not about me. It's all about him."

"Every situation is created by at least two people with different perspectives. You could both see the exact same event and have different stories about what you saw. So somehow, you helped create this situation. Subconsciously or conciously. It doesn't matter. But the fact is that you contributed to the situation."

Sue sighed after a long silence. "Well, maybe I could have handled it differently in the beginning. I wanted him to like me. To think that I was a collaborative colleague and a good listener. But maybe I started things on the wrong foot and set a precedent for him coming to my office any time he wanted."

It wouldn't be an easy road to repair, but Sue was on the right track. Thinking about her contribution to the problem and how she can change it. She was ready to start moving ahead, instead of getting trapped in the quicksand every time this colleague came to her office.

Funnily enough, this week provided a similar lesson...for me. From my editor, of all people. My book, "A Manager's Guide to Coaching: Simple and Effective Ways to Get the Best out of Your Employees" will be published by the American Management Association in March '08. My co-author, Brian Emerson, and I turned in our manuscript. Our editor then sent us her edits for the book. We were dismayed when we saw her comments and changes. Not that she had done anything wrong. On the contrary...she had edited our manuscript perfectly regarding the grammar and syntax. But it wasn't our book anymore. it didn't sound like us..it didn't feel like us. So poor Brian had to read all 200 pages of the edited manuscript again, to see how she had changed the grammar. It took him hours and delayed other work. He then sent it to AMACOM to be approved, which it was.

When we discussed the situation at lunch, I asked "What was our contribution to the situation?" It was clear. We hadn't talked to the editor beforehand, outlining the tone of the book. The book was intentionally written in a conversational style...hip and trendy. Easy for a manager to pick up and read. Yet the editor thought our grammar and slang was a mistake...not intentional. So she wasted time editing it and we wasted time re-editing it.

Lesson learned: Watch your contributions..they can come back to haunt you!